The L.A. Clippers had one of the toughest seasons to date last year, in part due to Blake Griffin.
Not only did the Clippers fail to make the second round of the NBA playoffs after a pair of devastating injuries to Blake Griffin and Chris Paul in Game 4 of the first round, but everyone had to step up in a huge way for 45 games without their all-star in Griffin as he recovered from one of the biggest mistakes of his life.
Blake Griffin and team equipment manager as well as good friend, Matias Testi, got into an argument while the team was in a restaurant in Toronto. The end result was a broken hand, an injured friend, and a team left figuring out how they were going to stay alive in a tough Western Conference.
Griffin issued an apology soon after the details of the fight came out, but it wasn’t going to change the fact that he was set to miss significant time recovering from an absolutely unnecessary injury.
With the issue occurring in late January, rumors began swirling that Griffin was on the trade block ahead of the February 18th trade deadline. Griffin and the Clippers were all over the media, but for all the wrong reasons.
Suddenly, “the Clippers are shopping Blake Griffin,” “Griffin could be traded for Kenneth Faried,” “the Clippers are not trading Griffin,” and “L.A. will explore trading Griffin in the offseason,” were all rumors that engulfed the team. Despite the fact that Doc Rivers publicly said they were false, it's simply not what they wanted for a team considered a legitimate championship contender.
Griffin made a return to the court in mid April, and after the Golden State Warriors lost Stephen Curry for an unknown amount of time due to a knee sprain, there was a quiet sense of hope that the Clippers would be able to upend the Warriors if they got past the Portland Trailblazers. The day after Curry's injury, Griffin re-aggravated his quad injury just after Chris Paul fractured his hand in Game 4 in Portland, and just like that, the Clippers hopes of advancing went down with their two all-stars.
Now, Griffin has put the whole thing behind him, writing an apologetic piece on Friday via The Players' Tribune aimed at Clippers fans.
“I’ll just get it out of the way,” says Griffin.
“Last season sucked.
I am truly sorry. What happened in Toronto was 100% my fault. I messed up.
There’s not a day that goes by that I don’t think about it. And I don’t mean that in some clichéd “not a day goes by” way.
I genuinely think about it every single day, and I just feel like I let down the fans who have been riding with us since the beginning.”
Griffin continues, showing his understanding of how upsetting he was for a Clippers franchise that has seen nothing but disappointment year-in and year-out. This incident and injury, however unfortunate, may just change the tide for the Clippers franchise because Blake Griffin is entering easily the biggest and most important year of his career. No, not just because Griffin is in the prime of his career at 27 years of age or because he's entering a contract year if he opts out of the final year (although he says he plans to re-sign with the club after this season).
It's because Griffin knows just how much he disappointed his friends as well as his family, and if his Players' Tribune piece is a true reflection of how he feels, Griffin is out for redemption this upcoming season.
When I was at my lowest point, a few days after the incident happened last season, I got a call from my older brother Taylor, who was over in Italy. He didn’t tell me what I wanted to hear. He said to me straight up, “Man, what are you doing? This is not you. What are you doing this for?”
I was crushed. It broke through all my walls. To hear that from him, somebody I’ve looked up to my whole life, who always tells me what I need to hear, that’s when I had a pretty big realization about who I am, and who I want to be.
I don’t want to say what that realization was. I just want to go out and show you.
Clippers fans, thank you for always being the realest.
Kevin Durant‘s departure from Oklahoma City will make it hard for the Thunder to remain a contender in the West, which means that, when healthy, the Warriors, Spurs, and Clippers will battle it out to be the best. Just 17 months ago, the Clippers unseated the defending NBA champion Spurs in seven games.
In his six years in the NBA, Griffin has done nothing but improve for the Clippers. Critics told him to get a jumper and stop dunking so much and he developed a solid, go-to jumpshot. They told him to start making free throws and he improved from a 50% free-throw shooter a 73% shooter. Griffin has even become one of the greatest passing big-men in the league right now.
Durant's arrival in Golden State will make it very hard for anyone aside from the Warriors to come out of the West, but with all the years of disappointment in their past, Clippers fans can ask for nothing more than a healthy, rejuvenated, and refocused Blake Griffin eager to redeem himself for the 2016-17 campaign.
Follow Us
Subscribe